#AND NOW ITS GODDAMN OVER

[xuxudio]

successfully choosing the most doomed ship in any media since 1999

[95-6qrsk2rx9uq42069nnnnnjthewolf]

i think tim is high maintenance the way a boarder collie or austrialian shepherd is. like you have to make sure they're not only given space to expend energy but you have to specifically let them get the herding instinct out and challenge them intellectually or they start destroying ur home

[milkweedman]

learning to spin on a drop spindle: a beginner’s lengthy yet comprehensive guide

I put this monograph together for a friend, but many other people wanted to read it as well, so here it is !

Fig A: Parts of a Drop Spindle. (image source. notes are mine. Click for higher res !). Apologies in advance for the lack of image descriptions--for the most part I use images because I can’t figure out how to describe the thing in words, so describing the images is kinda the whole issue. If anyone wanted to write them for me I’d add them to the original post in a heartbeat !

How to Get Started Drafting and Spinning

So, you have your fiber and your spindle--now what ?

Friendly pre-tutorial reminder that radfems can fuck right off if they think I’m writing any of this for their benefit. I’m not. I hope they all choke on their spindles <3. This is a safe space for trans people first and foremost.

(Check out this post that goes into picking a spindle and your first fiber, if you don’t have one yet)

First, you might wish to practice drafting a little. Drafting is the process of drawing the fibers out from, for example, a strand of roving or a rolag, into a thinner, airy length. To draft, loosely hold your fiber in your dominant hand, and pinch the very tip of the fiber with your thumb and forefinger of your non dominant hand. Then gently pull. If you pull all the way, you should notice that your fiber detaches from the fiber source eventually. For yarn, we want very very long lengths, so we don’t want that to happen. To get a continuous length of drafted fiber, simply change where you’re pulling from as you go. For example, you can draft out 2 centimeters/1 inch of fiber, and then move your fingers 2 cm/1 in back toward your fiber supply, and draft again.

The thinner you draft (or pre-draft*), the thinner that fiber will spin up. Once we start spinning, you’ll see how adding twist immediately compacts the fiber quite a bit, so you need to draft much thicker than you actually want your yarn to be. When pre-drafting specifically, if in doubt--draft thicker. You can always draft it out a little more as you’re spinning.

Figuring out how to draft smoothly can be one of the harder parts of learning to spin, but even before knowing how to do it perfectly you can still create good yarn.

Check out The Joy of Handspinning website to see drafting in action, as well as several different types of drafting.

Also check out this video explaining pre-drafting roving. 1:00-2:30 is especially helpful. If it’s not clicking from this video, search youtube for “pre drafting fiber for spinning” and watch til you have a better understanding.

*pre-drafting just means drafting before spinning--so it’s the same type of thing as drafting while spinning, but without having to wrangle your spindle at the same time. I’d recommend pre-drafting at least a bit of your fiber until you feel comfortable doing it. Then you can spin with your pre-drafted fiber, and it’ll be easier than if you hadn’t pre-drafted.

Tips: If you have a bottom whorl spindle, you may also want to practice spinning the spindle before it has any fiber on it, just to get a feel for how it moves. You could do this with the bottom point in a bowl or on a flat surface like a book or table. Try rolling the top of the shaft between your thumb and index finger. Don’t worry about it toppling over frequently--your spindle will be suspended by the yarn that you’re spinning, so it won’t topple !

If you have a top whorl spindle, you might have a harder time getting it to spin without being suspended, because the center of gravity is so high. Instead, try tying a piece of thread or scrap yarn to the hook (if it has one) or below the whorl (look for figure B below) and secure it with a half hitch knot. Then try spinning it like that, and let it hang freely to unwind itself whenever it has too much twist before you try again.

You can also try spinning a bottom whorl suspended by scrap yarn or thread. The advantage of trying it while it’s suspended is it can allow you to watch twist being added and see what it does without messing with your handspun, as well as letting you get a feel for how it moves while suspended. If you have a bottom whorl, I’d give both a try !

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Now that you can draft, you’re gonna want to attach your fiber to your spindle. Some people use a leader to do this--it’s a pre-spun loop of yarn that you tie to your spindle. Then you loop some pre-drafted fiber through the loop of the leader, add twist til it holds, and off you go.

Another way to do it is without a leader. I’m much more familiar with this method, and I find it way easier, so I’ll go into more depth on this one:

1. Take the end of your pre-drafted fiber (you will need enough pre-drafted fiber to go from the underside of the whorl to the very top of the spindle, and then back again. If you’ve pre-drafted way more, don’t worry. We’re just working with this short amount for now, but it can stay attached). Make a slip knot at the end. You can roll the fiber between your fingers to add some twist if you’re having trouble making a slip knot with it. (Tip: if you’re having trouble getting the fibers to roll, wet them slightly with water or spit and it will be much easier)

2. Put the slip knot on the bottom point of your spindle, and slide it up so that it’s at the whorl.

3. Gently wind the pre-drafted fiber up the spindle shaft, until you are at the hook or top. Wind it over the hook (or do a half-hitch knot at the top--if there’s a groove near the top your half hitch should sit in there, otherwise it should sit as close to the top as possible while still being secure. You may drop it a few times while learning where the perfect spot is--such is life). Be careful with pre-drafted fiber--depending on staple length and fiber type, it can pull apart quite easily. The trick to keeping that from happening is to keep it a little slack and loose until you have added twist to it.

4. Pinch your pre-drafted fiber between your thumb and forefinger on your dominant hand, about 1 hand’s width from the top of your spindle. Turn the spindle in the direction you intend to spin your yarn (usually this will be clockwise, or to the right). Spin the spindle until you have the desired amount of twist. You should notice that all the fiber above the hook/half-hitch has twist, while the fiber below it has none. You need all of it to have twist, so let’s even it out--pop the half-hitch off with your thumb/unwind the yarn from the hook, unwind the yarn from the shaft so that the entire length you’ve worked with so far is stretched out. This will allow the twist to equalize. Now wind it all back up and put the half-hitch back/wind around the hook again. You may need to repeat this a couple times to get your starting fiber fully twisted (don’t worry though--you only need to do this at the very start. From here on you shouldn’t need to equalize twist like that until the next time you start from an empty spindle).

You’re done attaching the fiber--now you can spin !

Fig B: How your yarn should sit on a spindle, both top and bottom whorl

If that doesn’t make sense, here’s a video showing how to attach it with and without a leader. If that doesn’t help either, search youtube for “how to attach leader to drop spindle” and keep looking until you have a better understanding.

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So you know how to draft and your fiber is attached to your spindle--now it’s time to spin ! There are 3 different parts to spinning a singles on a drop spindle.

1. Adding twist. This can be done with just your hands, but the spindle makes it a whole lot faster. This is the purpose of a spindle--to add twist very quickly (and as a bonus, it’s a handy place to store the yarn as you spin it !). All you have to do is spin the spindle, and the only trick is to make sure you always spin in a consistent direction--don’t start a project spinning clockwise and end it spinning counterclockwise ! You’ll have an impossible time plying it then. There are a lot of different ways to spin a spindle--you’ll see a few watching the videos here, and more if you search out videos of drop spindling yourself. Whatever method is comfortable and practical for you is what you should do.

2. Drafting the fiber. You already know how to do this part !

3. Winding the yarn on. When your yarn is long enough that adding more length will make it hard to work with, you’ll want to wind it onto the spindle so that you can get back to spinning. To do this, pop the half hitch knot off the top/unwind from the hook, unwind along the shaft, and wind it near or at the base of the whorl, in the orientation seen in the very first picture. Always wind in the same direction that you’re spinning, to stop your yarn from flying off.

I would highly recommend starting with the method known as “park and draft” while you learn. In this method, you first add a ton of extra twist (usually as much as you can) and then put the spindle down and draft until that extra twist is used up. Then you wind on, and repeat. This isolates the actions of spinning so that you are only doing one at a time, which makes it a lot easier. Most people move on from this technique once they’ve figured it out, but you don’t have to--the drawback is that it’s typically slower, but hey, spinning is a slow craft anyway. There is no wrong way to spin, and everyone’s hands and bodies have different needs and work in different ways.

How to Park And Draft

First, use your dominant hand to pinch your pre-drafted fiber a few inches/6 cm above the top of the spindle.

Now just spin the spindle clockwise, until it won’t really spin any more. (Don’t try to get ~the most twist ever achieved~ or anything like that--your yarn can potentially snap from too much twist. Take your cue from the spindle--when it stops wanting to spin, you’ve got enough twist.) Don’t let the twist advance beyond where you’re pinching it off.

This is important--if the twist gets into your fiber, it becomes much harder to draft it. But don’t worry, you can undo this by pinching just above where the twist has entered your fiber, and with the other hand just below (pinching the actual yarn here). Now (with the hand that’s pinching the yarn) roll in the opposite direction that you’re spinning in. This will move the twist down into the rest of your yarn. Let go of where you’re pinching the fiber, slide your yarn-pinching hand to where it usually is as you’re spinning, and get back to it.

Your leader/yarn should be very kinked up and wiry. Now put the spindle between your thighs (or between your knees, under one knee, or under something heavy that won’t damage your spindle. Thighs are convenient, but if it’s uncomfortable, try putting the spindle somewhere else. It needs to be held firmly in place and not move around). This is the “park” part of “park and draft”.

Now, you want to be pinching the twist off at the same spot, but using your other hand instead. I usually pinch right above where I’m already pinching and let go with the lower hand.

First we’re going to just bring the twist up the pre-drafted fiber by sliding your pinching hand up the fiber, slowly and gently. You should see the twist follow behind your hand as it enters the fiber. If you have lots of pre-drafted fiber, you might wind on, add more twist, wind on again, etc. You could also draft out your pre-drafted fiber (this is what the majority of more experienced spinners who pre-draft do) while you go.

The “draft” part of “park and draft” is just like pre-drafting, but one end is attached to a spindle. This gives you something to lightly pull against, if you want. Draft slowly and with purpose.

At a certain point, you will run out of excess twist. At this point, wind on. If you’ve only done a short length, you can also add more twist, park it again, and go back to drafting.

If you’ve run out of armspan but still have lots of excess twist, unpark your spindle (let it hang free) and allow it to untwist a little, monitoring it closely. If this happens often, try to put less energy into twisting your spindle, or allow it to twist for less time.

The amount of twist that your yarn has matters a lot--it will impact your finished yarn hugely. A yarn without enough twist will be very limp and might even fall apart as you handle it. A yarn with too much twist will be wiry and inelastic. You want to find a middle ground where it’s got just the right amount for what you intend to use it for--a hard, inelastic wool yarn can make a good bag, but not a very good hat.

To see how much twist you’ve added to your singles as you spin, try a plyback test ! This is really quick to do on spindles--just relax the distance between your fiber supply and the top of the spindle. When the yarn is no longer taut, the live twist will cause it to twist back on itself. With too little twist, you may just get a few sad loops (or no loops, if it’s super undertwisted). With too much twist, you may get tons of tight little curls of yarn. With a good amount of twist, you should have a few good curls (just one if it’s a short length of yarn, or several if it’s your armspan) that aren’t too tight. Those curls are what your yarn will look like once 2 plied, so it’s a great litmus test for whether you’re adding the correct amount of twist or not.

Fig C: What different amounts of twist looks like in your singles.

To fix too little twist, just spin the spindle a little extra until it looks right. To fix too much twist, either draft more fiber or else let the spindle untwist a little.

You can and should do this before winding each new length on, at least while you’re still learning the motions.

Check out this video of how to spin with the park and draft method ! 0:00-4:45 is intro and attaching the leader. 4:46-9:00 is the method itself (note to friend: don’t watch past 9 mins). If this video doesn’t work for you, search “drop spindle park and draft” on youtube.

A few interim tips

1. It’s critical to hold your fiber supply loosely. If you find that you have put a lot of force into drafting, then you are either holding your fiber way too tight or your hands are too close together (or potentially both). Drafting should not require force. If it is requiring force, adjust your grip and your hand placement continually until it gets better, and refine from there.

2. Try to put some tension on the yarn as you wind it on. This will make it sit a little neater and flatter, so that you have a more stable cone of yarn and can fit more on it.

3. If you draft out your fiber so much that it runs thin and just sort of disintegrates, just pull off the most wispy parts from your yarn and the fiber supply, then hold the two together again, making sure to overlap by several inches/6-10cm. Gently draft out a little and add twist before putting that join under the weight of your spindle, or it will fail again. You can join from one fiber source to the next one (necessary with rolags, hand combed top, and strips off of batts) in a similar way; make sure to leave a little unspun fiber for a good join, and overlap the end of the first fiber source with the beginning of the second by about an inch/2.5 cm.

4. If your yarn snaps (rather than your fiber running thin as you draft), it’s because it was A) twisted way too much B) spun too fine for the drop spindle you’re using C) both A and B or D) your spindle has become heavy enough that it can no longer spin as fine as you were spinning.

For A, B, and C: remove as much twist as you can from either end of the snapped yarn, then put both ends in your upturned palm, overlapping them over the whole width of your palm. Add enough either water or spit to get them good and wet (not dripping, but they do need to be wet). Now place your other palm down on top, and rub vigorously for about 30 seconds until the ends have joined together. If necessary, you can also just tie the ends in a knot, although it’s not invisible and you can usually feel it in the finished yarn.

For D: is your whorl removable ? If so, remove the whorl and continue spinning. If not (and for the vast majority of beginner’s drop spindles it won’t be), your spindle is full ! Even if there’s still room, it’s too heavy to continue spinning on for that project. You could keep going spinning a thicker yarn, but that means your yarn will randomly get thicker somewhere near the end, which works for very few projects. If this happens to you when there’s still tons and tons of room on your spindle, that means in general you ought to spin thicker yarn on that particular spindle if you want to fill it up all the way.

Okay, I spun yarn, now what ?

So at the moment, you have what we call a singles (some people just say “single”). That can be used as is, or it can be plied--that is, held together with more strands of singles and twisted in the opposite direction. But either way, you need to get it off your spindle !

If you’re going to leave it as a singles, then you’ll be winding it into a skein (we’ll get into that later). If you want to ply it though, you’ve got a lot of options. (I’ll get to how to actually ply later, this is just discussing those options.)

Many Methods of Plying

Plying Straight Off The Spindles

First, if you’ve got multiple spindles capable of spinning the same weight of yarn, you could just set your full spindle aside and spin another one. You’d need at least 3 spindles (the third, ideally, a bigger plying spindle) to get a 2 ply yarn, and 4 spindles to get a 3 ply with this sort of setup. This is what I do with supported spindles, since I have many, and I can attest that it saves a lot of winding time and is terribly convenient.

But it’s also probably not doable for many people, and it’s ridiculous to buy 3 drop spindles when you’re just getting into it !

Wind And Store

Second, you can wind your singles onto something for storage, and then use your now-empty spindle to spin another singles. Two great things to store yarn on are small rocks and empty toilet paper (loo) rolls.

Winding it around a small rock is better than just winding it into a ball for plying, since the rock will weight it and stop it from flying up in the air once you start plying. A big pebble works great. With this setup, you’d want to put all your balls of singles in a bowl or container of some kind, hold the ends of each, attach it to your spindle, and let them roll around as you ply.

They can tangle (mine usually don’t, but it can happen), so the toilet paper rolls might be an upgrade--these can be put on a stick, and the stick can be put on something (or you can poke two holes in a cardboard box, put the stick through one hole, load the rolls onto it, then put it through the other hole as well) to keep it stationary so that the rolls... well, roll. This requires some storage space (usually if you do this often, you don’t wanna make a new one every time, so keeping it is preferable) and is honestly not a huge upgrade... unless you have a ball winder that can wind the yarn onto the TP rolls for you, in which case this is a big time saver. If you don’t have one and don’t have issues with tangling, the rocks will probably work just as well and take up a lot less space.

Fig D: Diagram of a Simple Ply Box

Ply Bracelet

Thirdly, if you want a 2 ply yarn specifically, you could wind it onto your hand and make something called an Andean Plying Bracelet. Here’s a link to a page that goes into it in detail. I highly, highly recommend learning how to do these. They look a little complex, and I couldn’t tell you the motions if my life depended on it, but I can do them with my eyes closed while not paying a whit of attention. They rely entirely on muscle memory, so once you learn them, they’re easy as pie.

The whole point of a plying bracelet is to get 2 strands of yarn out of 1 singles. You could of course wind a singles into a ball, then wind half of it onto another ball, and then ply from there. But a plying bracelet is a lot faster, and will always match up exactly.

One downside of a plying bracelet is that, as the name implies, it goes on your wrist. So if you keep needing to put your spindle down to take care of other things, you’ll need to pull off the plying bracelet as well (or carry the whole thing with you). They can be stored on a cylindrical object that’s smaller than your wrist, or sometimes also draped on hooks or put on the spindle shaft itself. I don’t usually encounter problems when pulling on or off my plying bracelets--it doesn’t seem to tangle them--but if you’re plying while cooking or watching a child or something else that might require you to stop immediately and hurry over to whatever needs tending, then you might want to save the ply bracelet for another day.

Chain Plying

Fourth, you could wind your singles into one ball, and then chain ply it. Chain plying is a way to turn one singles into a 3 plied yarn. It also preserves stripes in your singles (we’ll talk about this in more detail later), so it can be perfect for a very colorful singles.

Chain plying is simple. Do you know how to tie a slip knot ? Of course, because you needed one to start spinning ! (Although here’s the link to how to tie a slip knot again, if you need it.) So that means you basically know how to chain ply as well.

Step one: tie a slip knot at the end of your singles (you want a very short tail, since that’s basically waste). Make the resulting loop nice and big, and lay it over your singles. Pull the singles through the loop--now you have a new loop ! Make it nice and big as well. Lay it over your singles. Pull the singles through.  Repeat until you’re at the end of your singles (try to have your last loop be a very small one). To finish, place the end through the loop, and then just pull on it until it tightens the loop. Note that you typically are adding ply twist and winding on as you do this, but you can also just chain ply an entire single and wind it into a ball as you go, then add twist once you’re done. That can be a lot easier to wrangle, if you’re having difficulties.

You might notice that this is basically a really open crochet chain. Yep ! It needs to be open so that the twist can enter the yarn, but you can do very big or somewhat smaller loops--although no matter what, you need to keep the loops large enough to at least hook a couple fingers through them so that you can make the next loop. Note that sometimes, the bump at the start of each loop can be felt and/or seen. Also note that chain plying is best done with smooth singles that can slide against each other. It can be done with a bumpy, lumpy yarn that sticks to itself, but bumps and lumps will catch as you try to chain, and if the yarn sticks to itself then it won’t slide nicely, which can really slow you down.

You may find that you prefer holding the ball of singles as you chain, or you may want it in a container on your lap/on the floor. You could also make a little wrist pouch to hold it, although take friction into account--if you make it out of wool yarn, choose a smooth one.

Ply Ball

Fifth is a sort of hybrid of a few of the others I’ve already mentioned, called a ply ball. To make a ply ball, simply wind two or more singles together into a ball (I’d suggest winding them around a small rock for a ply ball, too). The number of singles you wind in your ply ball will be the number of plies your yarn will have. A chain plied single wound into a ball is also functionally a ply ball.

Ply balls are extremely portable--you only ever need to work with one at a time, so you can just keep it in your pocket without worry of tangling, and it’s not attached to you or a box or another spindle. The downside is that it generally requires you to either have multiple spindles (ex: fill up two spindles, wind both off into one ply ball) or do extra winding (ex: fill up your spindle, wind it off to a rock for storage, fill up your spindle again, now wind from the spindle and the rock to get your ply ball. Add more winding for more plies).

However, you can also wind a ply ball from plying bracelet (yes, that’s more winding--but now it’s portable, and you’ve just turned one singles into a 2 strand ply ball) or even chain a singles, but wind it into a ply ball instead of plying it then and there to get a 3 strand ply ball (this also might let you play around with really long or really short chains without having to think about ergonomics as much, since your spindle isn’t involved).

Ply balls can also be helpful if you’re having issues wrangling your singles while you try to ply, since they’re laid together already--so they’re worth an attempt if you are having trouble keeping your yarn in line while plying.

There’s a short (but full of tips) article on ply balls here.

There’s even more ways to ply--look into "plying from a center pull ball” (similar to a plying bracelet, but requires a ball winder or a nostepinne) and “ply on the fly” (chain plying at the same time as spinning the singles--highly portable instant gratification). There may also be others that I’ve forgotten or not heard of, hopefully mentioned by others in the notes !

So Many Ways to Ply--How to Choose ?

So, every plying method and every number of plies has its own effects on the finished yarn, and you can use those effects to get the yarn you’re after.

By the way, if you’re not familiar with yarn weights such as lace weight and worsted weight, you should read this first !

A singles is great for your soft, fluffy, luxury stuff--cowls, hats, mittens that won't get a lot of wear, or shawls. It also preserves the colors that you spun exactly--so if you spun a beautiful perfect rainbow singles and the most important thing to you is that it stays a rainbow, you could leave it as a singles ! You can knit, crochet, weave, and nalbind with them like normal (I actually really prefer them for nalbinding--they felt easier so the joining is quicker), although because they haven’t been plied, they’re a lot weaker to abrasion and snapping. So they’re not ideal for things that need to be durable, and if you’re spinning short and/or fine fibers, you may find that even with some care they still don’t last very long, so keep in mind that stuff made from singles probably won’t be passed down or anything like that. But still, I’ve knit several small pouches from singles that have held up just fine being tossed around my room. One advantage to note is that you have the most yardage and the least spinning time this way, so it’s a very ‘time cheap’ yarn--you spin 100 yards/90 meters of singles, and you get 100 yards/90 meters of yarn. No time spent plying. However, it is as thin or thick as you spun it, and however consistent or inconsistent your spinning is, that’s your end result ! A lot of spinners (me) balk at this.

2 ply is next. I use 2 ply for almost everything besides socks--it’s quick, it’s fairly durable, and it looks very pretty (and an error correction: is ideal for lace). A 2 ply halves the amount of yarn you end up with--if you spin 100 yards/90 meters and 2 ply it, you’ll end up with 50 yards/45 meters. It also has a distinct ‘handspun’ look--2 ply knits up to a messier fabric. I really love that effect, but if you want a neat, uniform fabric, don’t do a 2 ply ! I’m not sure how it affects crochet or weaving, unfortunately, but do I suspect it’s similar with crochet. It also bulks up your yarn--it’ll be a little bit less than double the thickness of your singles, usually. 2 ply holds up alright to gentle/moderate daily wear, and is great for hats, gloves that don’t need to be hard wearing, scarves, and bags that won’t need to bear a huge amount of weight. It’s a workhorse yarn--you can use it for almost anything, and it’ll probably be okay. The only thing I would never use it for is socks--that’s a 3 or 4 ply project.

Let’s talk 3 ply ! 3 ply can be achieved either through chain plying or else as a traditional 3 ply--meaning 3 separate singles all plied together. You’ll get very different effects from these two methods in terms of both color and even-ness. If your singles had any stripes of color, with chain ply they will remain as stripes (this could be an alternative to your rainbow singles !). With a traditional 3 ply, your stripes will all blur together, and you’ll get a varied and multicolored yarn. You will get 1/3 of the yardage/meterage of your original singles, so a 3 ply yarn takes longer to make than a singles or a 2 ply. But it is also about 3 times thicker than your singles, so if you’re struggling to spin thick singles but want a thick yarn, 3 ply is a great option.

If your singles are very even, you’ll see no real different between chain ply and traditional 3 ply (except for the bumps at the start of each loop--they are usually visible as well). However, if your singles are kind of all over the place, chain plying magnifies this. On the other hand, a traditional 3 ply really evens out any inconsistencies. Even though I’ve got a few years under my belt, I am not a very consistent spinner, simply because I can neither visualize nor remember the weight I ought to be spinning, so it’s always a total guess (damn aphantasia). Beginners are also often inconsistent spinners, just due to lack of muscle memory. Either way, a traditional 3 ply can be really helpful in creating a fairly smooth, even yarn from really wild, inconsistent singles.

Fig E: comparisons of chain ply and traditional 3 ply, in terms of consistency

Lastly, 4 ply. 4 ply will turn your heavy laceweight singles into a light worsted, if it puffs up in blocking enough. I love 4 ply for my supported spindles mostly, since those spin very fine yarn and I don’t have a use for anything finer than sock weight yarn. It’s also very durable, and a laid 4 ply (like a traditional 3 ply--just 4 strands held together) make good socks. A cabled 4 ply (take two 2 ply yarns and ply them again) makes terrible socks, but is still very durable and has an interesting rope like appearance and texture. 4 ply in general is great for socks, bags, blankets, and especially sweaters, as it doesn’t pill much and will stand up to heavy wear. However, you have to spin 4 times the singles to get your finished yarn--a 100 yard/90 meter 4 ply skein requires 400 yards/360 meters of singles, and then more time for plying. So these are rather slow. They’re an awesome option for a fiber that refuses to spin up to anything other than the finest lace, and they will make great objects and garments that will last for a good long while.

Past 4 ply, you kind of just get rope. I haven’t ventured past 4 ply much--give it a shot if you’re curious !

The Why of Ply is a great article on the different aspects of different plies, and touches on some stuff I don’t mention (like stitch definition and cables) if you want to know more ! Highly recommend it.

How to Ply

So... you know at least a few methods of plying now, know how many plies you want your finished yarn to have, and you may have even already wound a ply ball or filled all of your spindles. Which means it’s finally time to ply everything.

To start, you need to attach all your plies to your spindle. For the methods that I’ve discussed (with the exception of chain plying), you’re going to do the following: gather the ends of your plies together, and make one slipknot with all of them. Then put the slipknot on your spindle below the whorl, the same way you would when spinning singles (and when not using a leader).

For chain plying: chain your singles until you’ve got about a foot or a third of a meter. Now you want to attach it to your spindle. Take the very first slip knot loop and slip it onto the spindle, below the whorl.

Now, secure your yarn by wrapping it around the hook or else with a half hitch knot, and spin the spindle counterclockwise (anticlockwise). You should immediately see the plies twisting together to form plied yarn.

From here, you will proceed basically the same way as you did when spinning singles--you’ll add twist to your plies, then wind on. This can be a really great opportunity to practice doing things while the spindle is in motion; you won’t be drafting, but depending on the type of plying you’re doing, you may be chaining, pulling from a ply bracelet, or simply letting the plies slide through your fingers (you do want to tension them and keep the twist from getting past your hand). If that requires too much coordination, feel free to park and ply--that is, spin the spindle to add excess twist, park it and let it into your yarn, then wind on.

If you try to ply your yarn the same direction that you spun it, you’ll notice that it doesn’t really turn into a cohesive yarn, and instead becomes wiry and the plies don’t slot neatly together. If you notice this happening, turn your spindle in the other direction. A yarn that is both spun and plied in the same direction won’t be stable or strong, and will tangle the second you try to work with it.

This is why it’s helpful to be consistent in which direction you choose to spin your singles, by the way--if you always spin wool clockwise, then you can know with certainty that it will be plied counterclockwise.

We refer to yarn as having either Z twist or S twist (this refers to whatever the finished twist is, so a singles that you’re never going to ply, or a 3 ply yarn, for example). This just makes it a little easier to talk about and recognize what we’re doing.

Fig F: S and Z Twist in plied and singles yarn

It’s essentially a mnemonic device that allows you to glance at your yarn and go “Oh! I spun these three singles counterclockwise, so I should ply them all together clockwise.” I often have to draw an S or Z in the air (just like I sometimes have to draw an L in the air to pretend I can reliably tell left from right), but it is pretty foolproof and will prevent you from, for example, trying to ply an S twist singles with a Z twist singles and then wondering what on earth went wrong.

By the way, this page has a really helpful chart on what direction you might want to spin in based on what you intend to do with the finished yarn. For example, crocheting (right handed style) with S twisted yarn will remove the twist as you work, but knitting in continental or English style (or crocheting left handed style) with that same yarn will add twist. Most spinners spin their singles to have Z twist and ply them with S twist--but if you’re a crocheter or knit Eastern style this will unply your yarn as you work, and you are encouraged to try reversing things to have better results with your handspun projects. The more you know !

Now, back to your plying. You may be wondering how you’re supposed to know how much ply twist to add, which is a great question, because plyback tests don’t work when you’re actually plying. Those are for when you’re spinning your singles. Instead, I do what I call a “hanging test”. Just hold out a length of plied yarn between your hands and let it hang (not pulling it taut--the yarn should have a nice downturned curve). A balanced yarn--that is, a yarn that has equal and correct amounts of spin and ply twist--will just hang nicely. An underplied (or underspun) yarn will usually also hang nicely, but you will see gaps inbetween the plies. This is no good at all. Gaps won’t just make your yarn look bad, they'll also make it split when you work with it, and will be less durable and more prone to pilling, felting, and eventual disintegration after much use.

On the other end of the spectrum, an overplied yarn (which may have both too much spin and ply twist, or may be underspun and then overplied in an attempt to fix ones mistake--which won’t work, by the way. You need to go back and add more spin twist to your singles) will twist in the middle instead of hanging. If it only twists a tiny bit, you’re fine. But if it twists a lot, there’s problems. Overtwisted 2 ply yarns tend to be aggressively smooth--this is only relevant for 2 ply, since those have a sort of pearled silhouette. If your 2 ply is smooth, then you’ve most certainly overplied it. 3 and 4 ply are always smooth, however, so a smooth profile for one of those is to be expected.

Fig G: Ply twist in 2 ply yarns. Do these yarns have S or Z twist ?

Don’t worry if your first yarns aren’t perfectly spun or plied (really--they won’t be). Every spinner is striving for something different with their yarn. Some are aiming for total technical perfection, some aim for exquisite fineness, some aim for beautiful colorways and for finding the softest and most lovely breed of sheep. Some just want to spin, some just want usable yarn, some just want a pair of socks that last on their feet and find commercial sock yarn to be about as durable as wet paper (that would be me). You certainly don’t have to know what you want to get out of spinning right away, but the point is that every single spinner has their own standards that they hold themself to, and you don’t need to (and shouldn’t !) try to meet others standards. Especially when still learning, but also just all the time and forever.

I’ve Plied My Yarn, Now What ? OR I Just Want Singles, Now What ?

Now your yarn needs to come off the spindle ! But not the way we’ve been taking singles to ply off the spindle--we need to make what’s called a hank. A hank is basically a loop of yarn that’s been tied so that it’s nice and secure. These loops can be pretty big (mine are all 2 yards/1.8 meters) or as small as the distance around your hand--it all comes down to what you wind your yarn onto.

I have already made a tutorial that goes into quite a bit of depth (and has pictures, even), so I’m gonna speed through this part a little bit.

1. Find something to wind your yarn around. A Niddy noddy is the preferred tool for the job here, and will make it much faster to wind and thoughtlessly simple to calculate the yardage/meterage of your yarn (I’ve seen people use yarn swifts as well, and they certainly look very speedy), but they are by no means required. Substitutes include: a large hardcover book, the back of one or two chairs, your hand (ideal for very small amounts of yarn), your forearm (for smallish amounts of yarn--wrap between the thumb and forefinger and go down to the elbow, then back up), or anything else that won’t deform with pressure and is holding relatively still.

2. Wind your yarn around that thing. You may need to start with a slipknot to attach it to whatever it is you’re winding on, or else a piece of tape. If you’re using your forearm or hand, you can simply pinch the end to hold it in place. Unlike when winding your yarn onto your spindle, when winding your yarn into a hank, you want to use as little tension as possible so that you can get a more accurate measurement of length later on. Also try to keep your winding tidy--in an ideal world, the yarn should be traveling almost the same path every time, not a few inches to the left one time, then wildly skewed to the right the next time.

3. Tie off your hank. Once you’ve finished winding, you need to secure your hank so that it doesn’t tangle. You can use either scrap yarn or else the ends of the yarn you just made (I prefer the latter, since the ends tend not to be very good anyway, so at least they don’t go to waste. In this case, snap off or cut both ends--the length you should cut depends on how thick your hank is). Find where both ends are--you will need to tie knots near the ends so that you can attach the ends to them. Tie an overhand knot a few inches/5cm below the first end, and then hold that end alongside one of your strands of knot-tying yarn, and tie another overhand knot. Repeat this with the other end. Make sure you haven’t overlooked any strands of yarn and left them out of the tie--that’s a very easy way to get tangles.

4. Remove your hank. Gently push your hank off of whatever you wound it on. Put it to the side--now we want to measure. Use soft measuring tape (or a piece of inelastic string or yarn, if you don’t have one--you will then need to measure that against a rigid measuring tape) to span the entire path that your yarn traveled. Write down that number, and now count the number of strands in your hank. Multiply the two numbers together. Now convert your inches or centimeters into yards or meters, and you have your yardage or meterage !

Ex: You wrapped your yarn around your palm, which measures 10 inches. There are 41 strands. 10x41=410. 410 inches is roughly 11 yards. Or: You wrapped your yarn around a small book, which measured 21 cm. There are 50 strands. 21x50=1050. 1050 cm is of course 10.5 meters.

Fig H: Winding a hank on a hardcover book.

It can be very helpful to label your handspun yarn. The yardage/meterage is critical information when it comes to using patterns, less so if you don’t use patterns. But there’s other info that you might still find handy to know later on, such as what the fiber is, where and when you got it, when you spun it, how you plied it, any info on the dye job, what the yarn weight is, what spindle you spun it on, whether it is part of a set, how much it weighs, etc.

Some of my really verbose labels might look like this: Avocado dye and copper mordant hand dyed in the fleece 2020 Cormo Bought 2019 Spun for 2020 TDF 2 plied on wheel 210 yards 3.4 oz light worsted weight

But most of my labels just have the yardage and breed, if I label them at all. I tend to document things online and also remember spinning my yarn better than I remember anything else going on in my life, so I’m a little lazy about labeling. Your labels should include the information that you think you’ll find helpful in the future, or that you know you won’t have another way to recover if you end up forgetting.

Blocking your yarn

Don’t attach that label just yet--we aren’t totally done with our yarn. It has one or two more steps before it’s ready to be used, and that first step is called blocking. There’s a few ways to block yarn--wet blocking, steam blocking, and resting.

Wet blocking: Get your hank of yarn wet, using anything other than very hot water (this could start felting your yarn). You could run it under the tap for a minute or else let it sit in a bowl of water with a little hair conditioner for about half an hour, if you wanted your yarn to be a little softer, then rinse the yarn. Squeeze as much water out as you can, then hang it to dry. You can (and should) also snap or thwack it--but I've gone into detail on that in a link below.

Steam blocking: Get a source of steam going--like a pot of water simmering or a very hot tap running. Using tongs or a long wooden spoon, hold your yarn over the steam and slowly rotate it until the whole skein has been steamed. Don’t let the yarn touch the water.

Resting: If neither option above is possible, you can also just let your yarn sit for at least a week. This lets the twist settle down, so it’ll be a lot easier to work with. However, it doesn’t do anything else that blocking does, so it won’t really show you your “finished” yarn, and may lead to problems down the road.

So--why did we just do that stuff ? Well, we blocked our yarn to reset the fibers, basically. During the spinning, we put the fibers under tension, and they more or less stay in that slightly stretched state. But it’s not really stable--the next time they get wet, they’ll spring back into the natural crimp that the wool wants to have (this changes drastically depending on breed and even individual sheep), and will often puff up. The hank might lose a little length and your yarn’s weight (not as in ounces or grams, but as in lace, dk, or bulky weight) often increases some. So if you’ve made your yarn into something before blocking it, with the perfect gauge and nice drape, the first time you wash it you’ll find that it’s thicker and a little smaller and has less drape. It might not fit anymore, or the seams might be messed up.

This is all entirely avoidable if you just block it before you do anything with it, so I highly recommend that you do.

The other thing that blocking does is set the twist, so your yarn won’t kink up as you work with it--even a perfect, balanced yarn can kink up as you work if the twist is live--which makes it a lot more pleasant. Resting sets the twist as well, as mentioned above.

I’ve gone into blocking in more detail in this post here, if you’d like to know more--I’d especially recommend reading the last section about snapping and thwacking your yarn.

Once it’s fully dry (and remember--wool can hold a lot of water and still feel dry, so give it a little extra drying time just to be sure) it only needs to be wound into a ball before you can use it ! Congratulations on your handspun yarn--that’s a real achievement.

Storing your yarn

If you don’t plan on using it right away, you may want to skein your hanks up to keep them compact and tidy. To do this, put your thumbs on the inside of your hank, and pull it taut. Then, one thumb at a time, twist in the opposite direction that you plied in. Your hank should start to kind of look like rope. Once it has a lot of twist (enough that you’re struggling to add more), find the center point of the hank, and fold it. With 2 yard hanks I tend to fold it over my knee, but a doorknob or something else would work just as well. It should immediately look like an oversized piece of yarn--that’s because we just twisted it one direction, and then folded it in two and let the excess twist twist it in the other direction, which is the same way you ply yarn ! There should be a loop at each end where your thumb was--take your thumbs out and put one loop through the other. Now you can attach your label and you’re good to go !

If it’s a very small hank (one that’s been wound around the palm, especially) you’ll probably just want to wind it into a ball instead. You could do this with any length of yarn--it’s not an ideal way to store wool yarn ultra long term, since staying wound into a ball can stretch out the fibers again, which means you’d need to wind it into a hank and re-block it if you wanted to make an accurate gauge swatch or something. Short term (a year or less) it’s just fine.

If you’re wondering how to wind up a big hank into a ball without tangling, just sit down with your knees up, and put your knees inside the hank, then move your knees apart until the hank is taut. Now you can wind in relative peace, free from tangles. You can also use a yarn swift, if you’ve got one.

I would recommend, by the way, using up some of your first skeins as soon as possible (you might want to keep your very first skein so that later you can see how far you’ve come--I really wish I kept mine). You won’t know how your spinning is until you’ve used it, so to prevent you from getting to skein #40 thinking you’ve been doing great, only to discover that your yarn is actually unusable... use your early yarn ! Evaluate it, make judgements, and learn from it. Does it need more twist ? Is it very lumpy ? Are there lots of spots where it went thin ? Do you like how the colors turned out with the plying method you chose ? These are all good questions to ask yourself as you use your yarn.

Moving On From Park and Draft

Once you’re comfortable with the park and draft method, you might want to try moving on to true suspended spinning. As I said earlier--it may not be for you, and that’s fine, but you won’t know if you don’t try. True suspended is quite a bit faster than park and draft, so if you want to speed up a little, you should give it a shot.

In park and draft, you first add twist, then park the spindle to draft your fibers into yarn. In true suspended spinning, you set the spindle going and draft while the twist is being added. This eliminates the whole ‘standing/sitting there with your arm outstretched, waiting for your yarn to accumulate twist’ section.

The easiest way to get into true suspended spinning is to work your way up to it--try drafting just a little bit while your spindle is building up twist during park and draft. To give yourself more time, set the spindle spinning slower. Then try drafting a bit more. The goal is to draft at the same rate that twist is added, meaning that you can wind on pretty much as soon as the yarn is too long to keep spinning.

The trick here is to adjust the speed at which your spindle spins rather than the speed at which you draft. You can only draft so fast before your technique gets sloppy, and past that you’ll be focused far more on keeping pace with the twist being added than on drafting evenly.

So if I find that I spun my spindle too aggressively, I still it immediately and try again, but slower this time.

I answered an ask about this a while ago where I went into a little bit more depth, if you’re interested.

And if you haven’t seen it, the pinned post on my blog is a lot of stuff like that all collected into one post for easier perusal. Some of them I’ve already linked to earlier in this post, but others I haven’t.

Small Projects, Scrap Projects, and Big Projects: Tips for All

You may be wondering, What the hell am I supposed to do with this yarn ? This isn’t even enough for a pair of fingerless gloves !

Which is a fair concern--endlessly accumulating small skeins of yarn can be frustrating if you don’t know how to use them up.

Drop spindles are limited in how much yarn you can make on them, and while you can make huge skeins by joining smaller skeins together, they may not all be the same weight ! Or they may not match. Or it may just be really boring.

You may also be doing a lot of experimenting, and ending up with 30 yard/meter skeins that you can’t even make something tiny with.

Small Skeins: For single skeins that are too small for gloves, hats, etc, you may still be able to make things like pouches (for yarn, crochet hooks, dice, coins, etc), baby socks or hats, coasters, or other small items. My spinning wheel oil holder is a little basket crocheted out of some handspun, and I have a mini tape measurer on my keys with a cover crocheted over it from handspun as well. You might have to invent things to do with your handspun, but using items that you made enriches your life--I promise.

Scrap Projects: What about tiny skeins ? Or maybe you’ve already made all the coasters and baby socks and spinning oil holders that you could possibly need, and now the small skeins are piling up again. I humbly submit the Scrap Yarn Project--my favorite type of project by far. I’ve been slowly working on a handspun scrap blanket for about 2.5 years, using tiny scraps, small skeins, and leftovers from projects alike. I knit 5x5 inch stockinette squares (some have colorwork, some have different stitch patterns, but mostly I let the yarn be the star) and for the most part just try make squares that are thick enough to stay warm but thin enough to have a little drape. It’s an incredibly satisfying project.

Fig I: An older image of the author’s handspun scrap blanket in progress. The yarns used range from fingering weight to super bulky, and are spun in all sorts of different ways. But it still feels very cohesive.

I like the square approach (and of course if you wanted to crochet granny squares, that would work perfectly too) because it’s modular, so you can decide halfway through that you don’t want a sweater, you want a bag--and then just sew the squares into a bag, instead. But it doesn’t need to be squares by any means--you could also make scrap yarn sweaters, hats, socks, scarves, etc., that are constructed normally.

The only thing to look out for is yarn weight--in some cases, you might want the weights to all be very similar. Socks, for instance, won’t do well if you have parts that are bulky weight and parts that are light fingering weight. You could hold yarns together to get similar weights if necessary, or just only add to the project when you’ve got another scrap skein of worsted weight or whatever. For squares you can use any weight of yarn if you want, but you should change your hook or needle size to get a fabric that’s a similar density, so your stitch count will change from square to square.

Big Projects: These can be difficult even for experienced spinners, because consistency is key to ending up with an even fabric. Not from armspan of yarn to armspan, but from skein to skein--if the weight changes, things can suddenly get much more complicated while you try to correct for the skeins that are too thick or too thin.

One way to try and mitigate that is to not ply anything until you’ve finished spinning all the singles--that is, if you need 10 skeins of 2 ply, spin 20 spindles worth, then go through and pair off your stored singles, thin with thick and average with average. It can definitely be more tedious to do it this way, but if you’re worried about consistency, it might be a good idea.

It also might not be necessary. Try to let your mind stretch back over the whole course of human history--as a species, we’ve been spinning yarns for pretty much all of it, and until very recently, what you spun was what clothed you. If the skeins you spun for your new cloak were all different weights, well... you probably either repurposed those skeins (IF you could, and that’s a pretty sketchy IF) or you shrugged, wore a lumpy cloak, and got on with life. Perfection isn’t everything, my friend. Either way, do what’s going to make you happy. For me, I’d be just fine with a lumpy cloak.

Out Of The Basics: A Few Further Pushes Into The World of Spinning

There’s many, many techniques out there, and an infinite variety of yarns to be spun. Some require tools, some don’t. Some are very advanced, and some quite simple. There are many other tools to spin on besides drop spindles. There’s also processes related to spinning--such as dyeing, fiber prepping, and wool washing--which can greatly enhance your spinning enjoyment and variety. I can’t teach them to you today, but I can certainly tell you about them so that you can look into them yourself !

Changing Up Your Fiber or Techniques to Get Different Effects

We touched on this earlier in the section about the number of plies--a 2 ply yarn will knit up into a bumpy, slightly irregular fabric, and a 3 or 4 ply will be very regular and neat. But that’s not the extent of what you can do to change your yarn up (without buying anything new). I’m going to throw some terms around now--you’ll need to google them, because this is already absurdly long.

For one thing, if you have roving, you can try splitting it lengthwise and fractal plying your yarn for a very beautiful self-striping but marled effect. You can also try spinning it from the fold on multicolored roving, which keeps the colors separate instead of muddied, which can happen otherwise.

With any fiber, you can always mix and match, or add pops of color ! If you’re spinning a bunch of gray rolags, for instance, you can occasionally detach the rolag, spin a tiny bit of blue roving, reattach the rolag, and go back to spinning. Depending on how you ply it, this could produce almost specks of blue or else slips and streaks.

Speaking of plying, the way you make a 2 ply can really change the colorway of the yarn if your fiber is a gradient or multicolored. Say you’ve got roving that’s a gradient from white to purple--if you do a plying bracelet, your yarn will be part barberpole, part gradient: a purple ply with a white ply at one end, and then gradually transition to the midpoint of lavender-pink in the middle, with both plies the same color. But if you plied it the other way, by wrapping your singles onto storage rocks and then plying from those, you’d get a yarn that’s got one pink ply and one white ply at one end, and one pink ply and purple ply at the other.

Chained 3 ply versus traditional 3 ply will make a huge difference as well. If your fiber has stripes, chain plying it will preserve them perfectly (as long as you’re careful to start a loop at the color change--or if you wanted it to fade in a little, you could start partway through a color change), whereas a traditional 3 ply will always marl them, no matter how careful you are about evenly splitting your fiber into 3 sections.

If you like really colorful and bright yarns, you might enjoy cabled 4 ply (where you ply two 2 plied yarns together). If your starting 2 plies are already colorful, you’ll get super colorful yarn with a cabled 4 ply--to me it always looks like dashed lines in different colors.

A laid 4 ply can also make some interesting color combinations, and is perhaps the ideal candidate for mixing random singles together, since it has 3 other plies each singles can hopefully be tempered by. And a yarn that has 3 plies of one color and 1 ply of another color can be interesting indeed !

It’s not just color that you makes an exciting new yarn, though--you can also try making boucle, or thread plying or autowrapping, or spinning beehives, spinning beads into your yarn, spinning thick and thin yarn... the possibilities are almost endless. I’d highly recommend giving “The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs” by Sarah Anderson a read if you can--she discusses all of these and many more, and shows how to do them. Other good books that’ll show you how to make lots of different kinds of yarn, or how to tailor your yarn to your needs, are: “Yarnitecture”, by Jillian Moreno, “Spin Art” by Jacey Boggs, and “Yarn Spinning With A Modern Twist”, by Vanessa Kroening. Your library may well have copies, and if not you could likely request they buy it.

You Don’t Have to Drop Your Spindles

...Because there’s other kinds of spindles ! And things that aren’t spindles, but on which you can also spin !

There are Turkish Spindles, which are functionally almost identical to drop spindles (and you can drop them, to be fair), but you wrap your yarn around two detachable interlocked arms that also function as the whorl. When you remove the arms and spindle shaft from the turtle (not cone) of singles, you can then 2 ply with it immediately using both ends. Turkish spindles are great if you love 2 ply and hate winding.

There are Supported Spindles, which come in many forms but are essentially fancy sticks with pointy tips that you spin in bowls. These have more winding than drop spindles because you spin in very short lengths at a time and wind onto a temporary cop that’s just below the tip (it’s much faster than if you wound all the way down to the cop near the bottom). However, you use them while sitting or even (with a bit of wrangling) laying down, and your arms stay in a comfortable, much more relaxed position while spinning. It also spins, as a default, finer yarn than your average drop spindle (I can achieve a very fine and consistent laceweight on any supported spindle, but have only managed that on my tiniest and lightest drop spindle). And they are very fast tools--with proficiency, they can be much faster than drop spindles. Supported spindles are great if you find drop spindles painful, if you have low energy, if you’re mobility impaired, or if you want to spin finer yarn.

There are Spinning Wheels, which come in many shapes and sizes but are the fastest way to make yarn by hand. There are a few objects which could fall under the umbrella of a spinning wheel (namely Walking Wheels, Charkah Wheels, and Electric Wheels) which do not have treadles, but the majority of spinning wheels are powered by foot treadles and can spin faster than you can spin a drop spindle. They also remove winding from your list of duties (for the most part), since the flyer will wrap your newly spun yarn onto the bobbin as you go. New spinning wheels can be prohibitively expensive, but you can also find used ones for ludicrously cheap on craigslist, at estate or garage sales, at antique shops, or other places where old items might be sold. (You can also often find them at affordable but not cheap prices at fiber festivals). Be sure to research the parts of a spinning wheel before you try to buy a used one from a non-spinner--there are many SWSO’s (Spinning Wheel Shaped Objects) out there that will fool you. Spinning wheels are great if you want to make larger amounts of yarn, or want to make yarn faster.

There are Electric Wheels, which are small machines that will add twist and wind the yarn onto the bobbin for you, so all you have to do is draft. New low end models are much cheaper than new spinning wheels, and they take up far less space. They also remove the element of treadling, so if you are intrigued by spinning wheels but have weak legs in any capacity, these can save you a lot of pain. I have a spinning wheel and can’t spin on it much anymore, because my knees and hips dislocate almost immediately. I switched to supported spinning primarily, but an electric wheel would be a good substitute as well. Electric wheels are great if you want to make more yarn faster, but can’t afford a spinning wheel or don’t have the space for them. They are also one of the more accessible tools for those with severe mobility impairments.

And there’s still more, although I can’t do a pitch for all of them xD. There’s Tahkli Spindles for spinning cotton, Navajo Spindles that are long thigh-spinning tools, Medieval Spindles that are easy to whittle replacements for if you break your spindle a lot, and even more beyond that. Many cultures have their own traditional spinning tool, each with their own techniques and strengths, and if drop spindles aren’t doing it for you but you still want to spin, I implore you to check out other kinds of spindles !

From Sheep To Sweater (Washing and Processing A Raw Fleece)

Most people learn to spin from roving (even if it might not be a very good beginner’s preparation), although there’s also rolags, batts, top (both commercial and hand combed), sliver, and cloud. But what if you could start with a raw fleece (unwashed, with vegetable matter and lanolin and who knows what else) and make things out of that ?

There’s some immediate advantages to starting with a raw fleece (even over a washed fleece). For one, raw fleeces tend to sell very cheap. This will depend on where you live, but the vast majority of fiber that I buy these days is raw fleece, and I’ve never spent less on fiber. At a fiber festival, I once paid $10 USD for 2 pounds (slightly under 1 kilo) of raw Shetland fleece. So--they’re cheap. As soon as someone starts putting work into a fleece, like washing it or dyeing it, the price immediately jumps.

Second, if you’re looking for the most bang for your buck, starting from a raw fleece is the way to go. You need to wash it, skirt it (take out the really terrible or gross bits), perhaps sort or grade it if it’s multicolored or there’s clear variation in fiber quality, dye it (if desired--I only dye my white fleeces, as I quite like brown and gray and black), process it into spinnable fiber, spin it, ply it, and then knit/crochet/nalbind/weave/do whatever else your heart desires with it. A single raw fleece can last me a month even if I work on it tirelessly, and I might have paid $20 USD--a little over an hour of wages for me.

It also brings you a lot closer to your work. I can’t say I felt very attached to my fiber when I worked exclusively with roving, but sorting through a pile of hand washed Southdown Babydoll locks while I comb them into top to spin into sock yarn on supported spindles that I whittled myself--I can tell you, I feel pretty damn connected to my work, to the ridiculous little sheep whose wool I have, to my socks, and to the wool itself. It adds a lot of depth, both to the experience, and to my understanding.

It’s also honestly pretty easy. To wash a fleece, you need a dedicated wool pot (as in, don’t cook in it again), a bit of dish soap, and some time. Put the fleece in--don’t crowd it, just work in batches if your pot can’t easily fit all of the fleece--add cold water and a squirt of dish soap, and let it cook on the stove for about 45 minutes, without a lid. Don’t let it boil--ideally it should be steaming but not quite simmering. You can use a dedicated wool spoon/tongs to gently and infrequently stir the wool. The water should get pretty gross. After 45 minutes, start the tap running (you need to rinse the wool in very hot water--if you let temperature shock happen, it could felt), drain the water, and rinse the fleece. Then repeat--filling up the pot with hot water now--until the water stops looking dirty at the end of the 45 minute cooking time. Rinse it one more time, and then let your wool dry, ideally on a clothesline but over a vent/spread out flat on a towel is fine too.

Yes, it really is that easy. If you’re worried about felting or otherwise ruining the entire fleece, you can always start by washing just a handful, so that way if you ruin it there’s not much waste. But I’ve washed at least a couple dozen fleeces that exact way, and I’ve never ruined one.

After washing and drying your fleece, you need to prepare it. I typically prepare enough to spin for a day at a time, but you could also do it all at once if that’s more your style. There’s many ways to prepare wool, and I’ll discuss most of them at least in brief, but we’ll start with teasing. This is where you take a lock in your hands, and tease it open. Let any VM (vegetable matter) fall out or pick it out yourself, and open the lock up to the point that you can no longer see any lock structure. It’s now spinnable, just like that ! This is a pretty slow method, but if you start out your raw fleece journey buying just a few ounces/50ish grams of fleece, it’s perfectly doable to tease it all open by hand.

If you have money to put into the endeavor, a humble pair of hand cards (70 TPI will card most wools), or you can kind of make do with two pet brushes like these (although at that point, spend $10 USD more and you have a pair of hand cards, so idk what the point of that is, unless you already have them) is a very good place to start. Load the fiber onto one card, card it until it’s uniform, roll it into a rolag, and it’s spinnable !

You also have hand combs, which are a lot more expensive than hand cards, but which can process very long fibers and can get out all the vm. Cards don’t remove a lot of vm, so combs is the way to go for super vm-y fleeces. They also produce hand combed top, which spins up into a very compact, strong, and abrasion resistant yarn--great for socks.

Past that are drum carders, which are machines in the way that spinning wheels are machines--manual, but they certainly automate the processing of fiber for you. These can be expensive indeed, but process fiber very quickly and are a great choice if you plan to sell the fiber, if you want to start with raw fleece but haven’t the dexterity to do it by hand (and there are electric drum carders as well--otherwise, you are turning a hand crank), or if you want to process high volumes of fiber because you just go through it that fast.

Honorable mentions include flick carding (both cheaper and slower than hand cards--you work with a couple locks at a time and open them up by flicking them with a tined brush), blending boards (these don’t process raw fiber, but they turn already processed fiber into batts--so you can blend many wools very easily for different textures or colors. These are like painting with wool--so fun !), and willowing (I haven’t tried this one yet, but you lay out your wool and repeatedly hit it with willow branches or other bendy sticks, which opens the fiber and also sends it flying all over the place. It looks very fun, and rather slow, and is also free as long as you can find a willow tree).

This website describes some of those methods (and one I didn’t get to) if you’d like to check it out.

Colors to Dye For

Wool takes dye very readily, and you probably come into contact with several natural dye materials every day--onion skins, avocado pit and peel, daffodils, coffee, black tea, thyme, even grass ! You don’t have to be working with fleece to dye it (although dyeing fleece gives you so much color variation and is very fun)--you can also dye roving very easily. Batts, rolags, and top less easily, although it’s possible with a lot of care.

For most natural dyes, you need to collect quite a lot of it, and then let it cook overnight on low heat. Boiling (sometimes even simmering) can kill the color, so you’ve got to be patient. Crock pots on low or medium are great for this. If you can cook it two days, all the better. Let it sit and cool for at least 12 hours, then strain it. (Tip: you can store natural dyes in jars in cool, dark places for at least a year without any ill effects--so you don’t need to use the dye immediately)

The majority of dyes need something called a mordant (I go into more detail about mordants in this post if you’re interested). There are many mordants, but some easy household ones are alum, baking soda (bicarb), copper (put a few bits of copper pipe in a jug of white wine vinegar, let sit for a few weeks at least before using), or iron (same as copper, but with rusty nails. Use a plastic jug !!! Metal will rust and glass can break). Most people mordant their wool by putting it in their dedicated wool pot with some water, adding the mordant, and letting it cook on low for an hour. Then drain the water and add the dye.

Natural dyes need to cook for a while to set--I usually let them cook overnight at least.

For batts, rolags, and top, you can do something called solar dyeing--carefully mordant your wool as usual, then place it in a jar with the dye, and put the dye outside in the sun. Over time (at least a week--often months, especially if you don’t live somewhere warm and sunny) the heat from the sun will warm the water and dye the wool. You could also try storing the jar somewhere you know will be warm, such as near the stove or fireplace.

You don’t have to use natural dyes either--there are also acid dyes, or food coloring, kool-aid (sugar-free), etc. I’m a lot less familiar with those, so I can’t go on at length. They can be a good choice if you don’t have the time for natural dyes, or if you want to get specific colors and not guess what your wool will turn out as. Look into them if you have any interest !

Dyeing your own wool is immensely satisfying, and can be a very cheap (or free, in the case of many natural dyes if you’ve collected or grown them yourself) way of obtaining more color, if you find that you keep ending up with a lot of white wool.

Endless Breeds of Sheep

There are many breeds of sheep on there (not endless, sorry--although there will always be new breeds being developed, so endless in a way !), and they all have different qualities, both in terms of the sheep themselves, and the wool they produce.

Do you want your wool to be very hard wearing ? Down breeds such as Southdown (one of my absolute favorites), Shropshire, or Dorset can be quite durable, and are resistant to felting. You could also go for stronger, coarser wools such as Jacob or Romney--coarser means stronger with wool, and softer tends to mean weaker.

Do you yearn for a softer wool ? Cormo is fantastically soft, as are Rambouillet, Debouillet, and Merino. Many lambswools (meaning the fleece from a lamb--the older a sheep gets, the coarser its wool tends to be) can be softer than their breed standard, so seeking out lambswools even from breeds like Jacob or Rya (both usually strong wools) can lead to soft fleeces.

Of course, there are more considerations than just soft and hard wearing, but there’s pretty much a breed for everything. If you’re interested, “The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook” by Carol Ekarius and Deborah Robson is an incredible resource, and covers just about every breed under the sun (with pictures, samples, notes, recommendations, and interesting bits of history), as well as most non-sheep fiber producing animals as well ! Speaking of...

There’s Not Just Wool

There’s also many non-sheep fibers, and plant fibers too !

Animals with easily usable fiber include: alpaca, llama, angora rabbits, goats, camels, musk ox, and more ! Their properties are usually different from wool--all of the fibers from the animals above have little to no crimp in their fiber, meaning that they aren’t elastic like wool is. They’re also varying degrees of warm (cashmere--the undercoat fibers that come from many different breeds of goats--are extremely warm, but still not as warm as musk ox down), and some are unbelievably soft. If you can, I highly recommend getting a little cashmere, a little camel down, or whatever other exotic fiber strikes your fancy. They’re very fun to experiment with, and small amounts can easily be worked into projects to add warmth, drape, or softness.

We can’t forget about silk, either--produced mainly by certain species of silkworms, although most insects undergoing complete metamorphosis produce silk of varying quality as well. Silk is a very interested fiber to spin--but it can also be reeled instead of spun, which is how you can get extremely thin silk pieces without even needing to spin thread-weight yarn.

But in early human history, before we domesticated sheep and bred them to have better wool than they started out with, we spun things like inner tree bark, flax, nettle, and cotton. These all require very different techniques than wool, but most of them can be spun on the same tools (and all but cotton can be hand twisted into cordage instead, if that’s more up your alley). They are also inherently cooling--fabrics made from linen will keep you very cool indeed--so if you live somewhere hot where having wool objects is mostly pointless, don’t despair ! There’s still stuff for you to spin.

Connect With Others !

I’m about done with this monograph, but there’s a few last things I want to share.

First is the existence of Fiber Festivals--you may or may not have some in your area. They’re extremely fun, and you can meet many spinners there. They’re also usually a very cheap source of fiber, as prices are often a lot lower at festivals.

Second is the existence of Spinning Guilds--again, you may or may not have one locally, but if you do, you might want to join ! There are also spinning clubs and groups, which might be a little lower-key and more welcoming to beginners.

Then there’s TDF, or Tour De Fleece. You may have heard of the biking tournament called Tour de France which happens in July--well, every year a lot of us spinners do a tournament ourselves, but it’s generally not competitive (except on Ravelry--there are teams and points and everything). For the most part, participating in TDF just means setting a spinning goal for yourself from July 1st to July 23rd (the end of the race) and then trying to achieve it. For a lot of people, this means spinning every day. Some set goals like “get through this whole fleece I bought 10 years ago” or “spin a sweater’s worth of yarn” or “learn how to spin flax, finally” (that’s what I did last year). Or maybe it is just spinning every day--even if just for 20 minutes. On tumblr you can see other’s work and post your own under the tag #TourDeFleece2023, or #TDF2023 (there’s many variants as well)--we’d love to have you !

Lastly, there’s International Spin In Public Day ! To be honest, nobody can really agree on what day that is--allegedly, it’s the 3rd Saturday of September. (For me, it’s literally every day that I leave my house, but I digress). But I’ve also seen posters for October, for September 10th or earlier, and just generally lots of different dates. I’d say play it safe--if you see someone say it’s International Spin in Public Day, go spin in public just in case :D. The purpose of a day like this is to bring spinning back into public knowledge--let’s face it, most people in the western world have zero clue how yarn is made, and couldn’t differentiate a spindle from a spatula. This sucks ! Spinning is such a great activity--it can be meditative, calming, fun, exciting, or a background motion to other activities that allows you to actually pay attention (if you have ADHD). And I think a lot more people would spin, and would enjoy it, if only they were exposed to the idea. You certainly don’t have to act as Spinning’s public outreach officer, or anything like that... but when people ask what you’re doing, explaining it patiently and encouraging them to look into it does everyone a favor.

In Conclusion

I hope this has been helpful and not too confusing ! It’s really important to note that I’m just one guy--I don’t know everything, and I might not always have the best techniques. Looking for information on spinning from multiple sources is a good way to get a well-rounded understanding, and to correct common misconceptions that you might have already learned. Perhaps more importantly, there’s pretty much an infinite number of ways to do almost every single step I’ve described here, and if the way I showed you--or the video I linked to showed you--isn’t working, don’t despair ! There’s nothing wrong with you, you probably just need to do it a different way. I must have watched 3 dozen videos of people drop spindling before it finally clicked with me.

I hope I’ve opened up the world of spinning to you at least somewhat ! There are many things I didn’t touch on, and lots of stuff I wish I could talk more about, but at the end of the day I mostly wanted to 1) show you how to make yarn and 2) pique your curiosity about the whole rest of it. If you have questions, I’ll try to answer them (Purple, I will of course answer all your questions and also attempt to mind read your questions before you’ve even asked them so that I have a 10 million slide power point done by the time the question is out of your mouth), but check the comments and replies first ! Someone else might have answered it already.

Thanks for reading, and happy spinning !

Fig J: The author holding his old drop spindle, spinning at a doctor’s appointment. The spindle now belongs to the friend for which this monstrosity of a tutorial was written ! :D

[sallymew4]

EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOURE DOING RIGHT FUCKING NOW

EVERYBODY SHUT UP IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pancakemolybdenum]

realized i never posted the full cards i made for @jjbatarotdeck!

leftover sales are open and will be until the 14th of september or when the decks run out! u can buy it here!

[stardust-moth]

In order to fully understand why it was so hard for Mike to express how deeply he loves El, and why his speech at the end of season 4 was one of the biggest, most important moments for his entire character, we need to look at not just who Mike is as a person, but also everything that has happened since he met her.

Every single time he opens up his heart to her, something horrible happens to her or she's taken away from him almost immediately afterwards.

1x08; he's an awkward little ball of feelings that are way too big for a boy so young. He makes a nervous attempt at confessing and asking her out on a date; when he can't find words that she'll understand, swoops in for a kiss instead. She lights up immediately and smiles. It's a brief moment of hope and pure happiness. Maybe they can have some semblance of a normal life and be normal kids after this is all over.

Minutes later, all hell breaks loose-- they're almost shot, El pushes herself too far until she can barely move, she's almost taken away by the Bad Men, the Demogorgon appears, and she uses the very last of her strength to sacrifice herself to save him and their friends.

He has to watch helplessly as she disappears.

He spends a year caught between believing she's dead and hoping she's still out there somewhere (but if she is alive then why won't she talk to him anymore...?). Kept silent under threat by the lab, he can't confide in anyone or even acknowledge her existence, not with anyone except those involved... but everyone else is keen on moving on and pretending it never happened. He can find some solidarity in Will, at least, who is in a similar kind of emotional turmoil... but it's not the same and it's not enough.

2x9; he is finally reunited with El, and she runs into his arms like she missed him too. She tells him that all those nights he called out to her, she heard him; she was there reciprocating his feelings the whole time.

In a burst of emotions that he's been forced to suppress for an entire year, he lashes out at the reason they've been kept apart (Hopper), screaming and sobbing. It's a massive catharsis for him, and for once an adult is understanding enough to hold him and not punish him for it.

Minutes later, she is going to go headfirst into a pit of monsters, the place where Mike had just firsthand witnessed dozens of people (if not more) get ripped to shreds only hours earlier, and she is going to attempt to close the Gate-- a feat that he knows may take every ounce of her power, just like last time. He cries. He can't lose her again. She promises he won't, and before she can seal that promise with a kiss, they're pulled apart again.

He has to watch helplessly as she drives away.

3x1; all seems to be okay now. He and El are happily together, and he feels comfortable enough to be playful, romantic, and intimate with her. It's the most emotionally open we've ever seen Mike thus far.

For reasons he can't understand (bc there's no way Hopper explained himself beyond "I'm in charge so do as I say or else"), Hopper is angry about it and threatens to never allow him to see her again: the one thing he fears most.

He panics big time and fucks it up in the process by lying to her. During a frantic attempt to apologize while also abiding by Hopper's rules, he runs into her at the mall. He panics again-- if anyone finds her here, and knows that he was here too, it's all over, and Hopper surely won't hear reason. El dumps him cold on the spot, spurred on by Max and her rebellious attitude (and without any context of course). He isn't given much opportunity to respond. He knows he's in the wrong for lying to her, so what could he even say...?

He has to watch helplessly as she drives away.

It's a hard blow, and he retreats back into himself, unable to get any joy out of playing D&D (which he clearly hasn't lost interest in), back to the deadpan sarcasm and accidentally snapping a little too harshly at anyone whom he feels would take El's place.

3x6; no one seems to understand the danger El is putting herself in. Everyone is berating him for worrying about her safety. He's seen firsthand what these monsters do to people, he's seen firsthand how El pushes her abilities too far. No one is listening.

The words "I love her and I can't lose her again" burst out in his desperation, perhaps before he's even had a chance to realize how deep those feelings run, despite whatever protective walls he's tried to build around his heart to keep it from getting broken again.

Soon after, all hell breaks loose. El is nearly killed several times over, her leg is ripped open, she pushes herself so hard that she breaks herself and loses her powers completely. Her father is taken from her. She's shattered by all of this, and there's absolutely nothing he could do or say to make it better.

She tells him that when he admitted he loves her, she heard him, and indeed she loves him, too... But now she's leaving.

He has to watch helplessly as she drives away.

4x1; they've been apart for a few months, and write letters back and forth to each other. El's letters paint a picture of an ideal new life: she and the Byers family are doing well; she's starting school and it's going well; she's made new friends, she likes her new home, everything is going well. She seems to be thriving. She sounds happy, maybe even happier than she had been living in Hawkins. Maybe Max was right, maybe she's better off being her own person without him, and maybe the respectful thing to do is step back... It's a small insecurity that creeps up subconsciously. In his replies he holds back, afraid of clinging too hard.

Though there's little logic in it, he's afraid that if he tells her he loves her again, another disaster might strike and this lovely happy life she's finally found might get taken from her. After all, that's what always seems to happen when he does.

4x2; after months of waiting, they can finally see each other again. He wears her favorite colors, picks a handful of flowers for her, and falls happily back into step with how they used to be. Soon that same day, however, reality becomes clear and the facade crumbles. People he was told were her friends show up to torment and publicly humiliate her. She had been lying. She isn't happy here, she hasn't healed, she is right at the edge of a breaking point that he doesn't see coming at all. He can't believe she would lie to him, she's not the kind of person to lie... especially not about something like bullying, something that she was always so understanding about with him.

On that logicless subconscious level, he wonders if it's all his fault-- he should have known somehow, he should have been there for her. She protected him from his bullies, he should have protected her from hers. He tries to come to her rescue. She runs away from him.

He's helpless to save her, again.

4x3; after a night to process everything that happened-- and deciding that the betrayal he feels from her lying to him is nothing compared to the turmoil she must be going through right now-- Mike approaches her in the gentlest way possible, wanting to listen and trying to understand. El, however, isn't receptive at all to his attempts at reassurance. She is at an all-time low, she's given up. She believes she is unlovable, irredeemable, a monster, just a thing that doesn't even have those superhuman abilities to compensate anymore. Mike can't believe what he's hearing-- doesn't she know that she's always been so much more than her powers? She's always been so much more than what she lacks in quote-unquote "normalcy"... None of those things matter, they have absolutely no bearing on whether she's worthy of being loved, because he loves her, completely regardless of any of these things. He always has...

El starts flinging his restrained words back at him, the products of his insecurity and trauma-induced fear. That fear takes hold yet again, and he stumbles, afraid of saying too much or not enough, because surely both could result in pushing her away-- she's retreating, hearing none of it; nothing he tries to say consoles her.

Moments later, local police come knocking. She's taken away in cuffs, and she's so broken inside that she won't even look at him when he chases the police car down the street and promises he'll get her out somehow...

Once again, he has to watch helplessly as she drives away.

4x8/4x9; after days of driving through the heat and dryness of southwest desert, having narrowly escaped being shot at with military-grade assault rifles, witnessing the death of and burying a man whose last words were that El is in danger... After watching dozens of people get mowed down by a sniper in a helicopter, and watching that same helicopter be smashed into the ground in a ball of flames...

There she is. Just as powerful and beautiful and alive as she's ever been. When he runs to her and embraces her, she looks at him like she can't believe he's real. She's beaming a smile right from her soul and it's like all the insecurity and self-doubt that have plagued them both just vanish from existence now that they're in each other's arms again.

Like always, however, the universe comes crashing down soon after. Max is marked for a gruesome death and all of Hawkins is in danger. They're miles away and helpless, and the only possible way for El to save everyone is if she goes in alone. She's stronger than ever, but so is her foe. Once again, she descends to face all the demons of hell on her own, and Mike can't do anything.

She's losing. She's choking. She's dying. He's helpless.

He must be cursed. He must be. Being with her, loving her, allowing himself to admit he loves her, it always brings only pain and suffering and loss. His heart is so full that it's aching, it's bursting out of his chest, and he can't contain it any longer.

She's going to die and it's going to be all his fault, because he fell in love, and it's cursed her.

Just before it all crumbles into utter despair, the earnest support from his oldest and dearest friend-- one who's always shared and understood his feelings of helplessness-- sparks a light of hope in him: "You're the Heart." You're not helpless. You can save her.

The words that come spilling out of Mike's mouth are truer than any he's ever dared to speak before, and it's the most terrified he's ever been, but he has enough courage for this moment. Despite all of the fears that have been building, stifling, choking him to death for years-- fears that the light of his life will inevitably disappear again, and there's nothing he can do to stop it-- despite it all, he pours out his heart to her.

He loves her. He's always loved her. He loves everything she ever was, is, and could be. He can't imagine a world without her in it. She saved him, in every way a person can be saved. And he needs her to live. He believes in her.

And it works. It's music to her ears.

[sidesteppostinghours]

ok. question.

ortega ended up hallucinating sidestep after they "died", but sidestep doesnt know about that. they know it got bad, but never the full extent of how their death affected them. so if your sidestep Did learn, if they found out ortega looked for them in every little piece they could, would that change anything for your sidesteps? would their relationship with ortega be any different?

[cloudysarts]

this show would be good if literally everything about it was different

[toxooz]

been binging tf outa Avatar the last airbender bc ive been puking my EVERLOVIN guts out since yesterday and hear me out

[dustykneed]

you are my sunshine, my only sunshine

you make me happy when skies are gray

(prompt fill for @mcspirkevents' mcspirk bingo prompt "gone with the wind".)

static frames below:

ouch! neck deep in aos bones feels rn... lmk if i should make a fix-it or somethin

[mail-me-a-snail]

moodboard for when . medic

[ganondoodle]

i really hate gettign so frustrated i get extremely irritatable and so full of ... energy of just wanting to cry and punch and kick something, and for some reason i also get incredibly itchy but in a way that it wont stop and i just want to scratch my skin off, like theres a little guy running over my skin and stabbing me with a needle in the same spots over and over, every little normal thing can send me over the edge, even thigns like typos, today it was cutting a little avocado that wasnt quite ripe yet, so i wasted it, and annoying ads on TV-

been trying for ages to draw literally anything, been trying to work on a new design sheet for links shiekah arm and i thought maybe i should ditch the sketch part since all things seemed to get stuck on it, but no, i dont know what it is, been trying to just get some of those shiekah squiggly design lines on it and its been three days without anything looking even remotely like i want and its so goddamn stupid, its just some wiggly lines!!!!! and now i am stting here in tears bc im so angry and frustrated about it, all this time wasting over and over and over im so tired of it, i dont want to not draw either though, i have wasted hours doing shitty grind quests in slime rancher, i have been helping with baking cookies, been folding little paper stars, all things i hoped would help me get out of this but it wont work, i am at my wits end

crying and kicking stuff so hard it hurts you cant be the right way to cope with this but all other things that have worked in the past arent doing that...................

[wexhappyxfew]

Hihihi!!!

I am absolutely floored by these prompts, seriously. So to start it off, I humbly request:

“this isn’t up for discussion. i know you’re used to looking out for yourself, but i need you to understand that you don’t have to live like that anymore. i’m here. for as long as i’m around, i’m going to come between you and anything that wants to hurt you.”

For Kennedy and Bucky if you feel so inclined. They are one of my fav couples (although it is so close let me tell you), but obviously only write if it speaks to you!

Can’t wait to see these pieces, Shannon!

-☀️

HI SUNSHINE ANON!!!! (enthusiastically waves) thank you so much for sending this in (plus your others, thank you so so much)! i got so excited seeing this kennedy x bucky request as i was already half-way through writing and realized how well things lined up when i got this request and decided to use it! thank you for the kennedy x bucky love truly!! they are seriously so fun to write and craft and getting to look at a more intimate, raw and emotional side of them here (with that lovely dose of angst and whump and comfort) was exactly what we needed with them! so i humbly present kennedy x bucky in the Stalag :) thank you so so much again! TRULY!! <33333

she'd fight a war herself

(a/n): HELLO FRIENDS!!!! if you recognize any of the few lines here and there from things i've posted related to kennedy and bucky here in the past few days, this is the piece! and the request really lined up with what i was going for here, so i combined the original kennedy x bucky piece i was working on with this one! and here we are! and im sobbing! okay! please enjoy! :)

"Knock, knock."

Kennedy's bruised knuckles tapped against the wooden door to the small library in their bunkhouse, where Bucky Egan was currently sat with one of those older wooden chairs pulled up against the window, staring out into the hazy afternoon. His large overcoat was wrapped around his body, hands shoved deep into the pockets, his hair a little more unruly than normal, and a sour look on his face.

Kennedy had been looking for him for at least an hour since she had left the group which had shifted outside - Annie and Buck's idea of 'getting some sunshine' into the group now that it was finally out.

Gray skies and storm clouds had been their friend for the past few weeks, with muddy pathways and cold winds. Now, with the sun out and a warm breeze in the air, there also seemed to be hope floating about.

Bucky, however, was here, sat inside, closed off, and completely alone. Bucky's eyes slowly shifted from the dusted window, his look both stern and far-off all at once, and his shoulders stood tall. She watched his eyes trail to her hand there on the door - the bruises, the ones she had earned herself, along with the one underneath her eye - and offered nothing but a small smile.

Ever since the kiss, in this very room, Bucky Egan had suddenly become everything.

At breakfast or dinner, where she tried to get herself by his side, or out when they managed to get outside, she'd find a way for just the two of them, to talk, to work through whatever the other was feeling, to take hold of the other's hand. Sometimes, when the nights were long and cold, she'd find herself in his bunk, soft kisses being shared back and forth between the two, his warm hands roaming her body underneath her overcoat and button-up and blanket, keeping her both sane and alive all at once. Things were different. And she tried to hold onto every bit of that in every way. The bruises though were different now. And Bucky had been a pistol about them ever since.

"Whatcha doing in here all alone?" Kennedy said, some of the voices outside coming through the walls, the sunshine coming in through the hazy window, half-reflecting off of Bucky's face in a way that made his skin glow in a way it hadn't in a whole, "I was looking for you." At those words, the corner of Bucky's lips curled upwards a bit. She always seemed to get him to grin.

"Just doing some thinking." Bucky said slowly, a nod to follow, "In my thinking spot." Kennedy chuckled and stepped into the room more, shoving her hands in the pockets of her poor, tattered A2.

"In your thinking spot, huh?" Kennedy said, tilting her head to the side, a small smile on her face, "What's bouncing around in your brain?"

Bucky watched her deeply for a moment, it felt like he was looking at her as intently as he could, as if memorizing her face, her dimples, her freckles, her hair the way it was (and it wasn't pretty). He seemed distracted, off-guard, on the low. Her smile fell and instead, worry began to consume her. Bucky was usually far from the person sitting in front of her now. Her heart pounded a bit.

Moving closer, Bucky looked up at her as she came to stand beside him - she offered an attempt at another smile - before reaching forward and running her fingers over those few loose, wild curls of hair against his forehead.

"What's going on?" she asked quietly, a bit more urgency to her voice, retracting her hand, the touch having been, evidently, both gentle and welcome, "You're never this quiet, Bucky, you're worrying me."

"C'mere." Bucky said, voice low and gruff as he reached out his hands and spread his knees a bit. Kennedy watched him for a moment, the desperation in his eyes, making her heart hurt a bit, as she stepped forward and settled between his lap and leg, wrapping her arm around the back of his neck and reaching up her other hand to cup his cheek.

Softly, she guided his face to her own and watched his eyes again, her thumb brushing gently on his stubbled skin. His hand found her waist, thumb brushing back and forth against her jacket as his other hand came to her knee, the warmth of his hand tingling her skin underneath her pants. It felt so natural to be like this, so close and intimate. If it weren't for the war and their circumstances, she would've said it felt like home.

But with Bucky, she was home.

No matter where they were.

"What's going on?" she asked quietly again, her voice soft as he continued to watch her, gripping her like his life depended on it.

Slowly, her leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her lips - soft, sweet and slightly desperate, but longing enough that her stomach flipped - she was still getting used to this between them. After everything they said to each other, that moment they shared. Pulling back, he watched her again. She offered a small smile.

"We can't just stay here forever." he said quietly, "This place. Now with the SS showing up." Bucky continued to hold her gaze, the look in his eyes both stern and persistent. He looked crazed deep-down inside. "After hearing what the British did…..those holes. We gotta find a way to do something. To get out. Or even just try….." Bucky whispered, his voice dropping, "There's so much more than this place, Kenny. I know that." Kennedy watched him, cheeks warmed from his touch and his presence and him. She slowly nodded.

"I know." she said softly back, "And we will. But for now, it has to be kept on the low. Nothing crazy. You don't want yourself hurt or killed."

"Just like they did to you?" Bucky said back to her, reaching up to take her hand on his face and gently hold it out beside him, fingers tracing the delicate, broken skin on her knuckles before looking back at her, "I don't want them touching you again." Her insides twisted warmly at his words, that protective bite to his voice that made her warm all over.

"I know, baby," she whispered quietly, leaning forward to press a kiss to his forehead, a sigh escaping his lips as he leaned his head back against the wall behind the chair, "we'll get through this. You know that." Bucky watched her, the corner of his mouth lifting upwards.

"How many more times do we have to say that before it's true?" he asked her quietly, his words almost hollow, like he was fighting to believe it, "I wish I was more like you with that." Kennedy watched him with a small smile and shrugged.

"Ask Annie Bradshaw and maybe she'd know. She's got quite the effect on a person." Kennedy said and Bucky managed to smile a bit at that.

"You've got quite the effect on me." he said, as she felt her cheeks warm at his words - something she was always trying to fight away - since when did she blush? Bucky continued to watch her and she let him; watching as his eyes explored her face, his hand coming up a few times to wipe back the ginger hair falling from the poorly done braids behind her head. His eyes rested a few times on her own eyes, before they'd fall to her lips or freckled cheeks and then back to her eyes. It seemed to calm him. Keeping him steady. She wanted that for him.

"I've never wanted to get out of a place more," Bucky whispered quietly, a catch almost in his voice, "you know that?" The thoughts just seemed to cycle and he seemed to spiral.

"I know." Kennedy whispered, reaching up to drag her fingers gently through his hair, his grip tightening on her waist, "We all do." Bucky watched her and leaned closer.

"Do you want kids?" he asked her, catching her the slightest bit off guard there - suddenly she felt every part of him touching her, his eyes on her face and she felt her body warm. Watching him for a moment, she nodded.

"Yeah," she said, "always have." Bucky suddenly seemed to grin at her, genuinely grin and she watched as he reached up and ran his fingers over the end of her braid.

"Bet they'd have your hair color. Bright red hair." Bucky said with a small chuckle, "Our kids." Kennedy watched her, her heart hammering in her chest, her eyes fighting to well with tears.

The thought of being a mother had always been a dream of hers - she had a girl in middle school tell her before that she didn't seem like someone who could be a mom. And Kennedy carried that quote with her everywhere she went. Even when she was dating boys from the country club and they'd tell her about the fortunes and promise rings of her future and the chances of what their kids would inherit. Even when she was home, broken-hearted over that loser from her father's business who had told her 'she was too much'. Kennedy always wanted to be a mother, always.

It was something inherent to her very being, to her entire make-up as a woman. To her.

"Your eyes." Kennedy said, testing the waters right back, her voice sounding strained and choked as she spoke, silently hoping Bucky didn't realize too much, "Definitely your eyes." Bucky met her gaze and smiled at her.

"Nah, nah," he said, "your eyes, my ears. Probably." At that, Kennedy let out a snort of laughter and sniffled a bit, looking towards him again.

"I don't want this to sound dumb, but I promised I'd never try to hide things from you…but, you want to have kids? With me?" she asked him quietly, watching as worry and concern built up in his eyes, straightening his shoulders a bit as he did so. She tried a joke. "But I'm a Red Sox fan." Bucky watched her, jaw set, eyes on her.

"I do." he said quietly, entirely serious, "I hope you know this-" gesturing between them, "isn't just nothing to me. You know that. I'm serious about you, Kenny. Why do you think I want to get out so bad? I sit here, day after day, knowing what we could have outside of this shit hole. I'm real serious about this. About us." Bucky continued to watch her. "You know that." Kennedy melted against him a bit, leaning closer, cupping his cheek as she tilted her head to match his.

"I know, I just…." she started, "I didn't know if I'd ever get the chance to be a mother in a world like this so….hearing you say that. It just, ya know, made me want it more. With you." Kennedy's big eyes trailed up to Bucky's and she watched him watch her back.

"Why'd you say it that way, Kenny?" Kennedy stared at him, those words from middle school ringing in her head. Over and over. Like a bell toll in the church, an echo off a never-ending cave wall.

"Someone, who clearly was very upset with their life, once told me I wouldn't make a good mother." Kennedy whispered quietly, "And I took it to heart and believed it. For a period of time. For a while." Bucky's eyes grew dark and his grip tightened on her.

"You still believe that shit?" Bucky asked her, voice louder than he seemed to want it to be.

"No." Kennedy said, "I used to let it get to me, but….not anymore. Not after being with this group. With you." Bucky watched her, his gaze softening a bit more as he watched her grin.

"Good." he said quietly, a silence falling between them as they watched each other, these small, shy smiles on their lips in a way Kennedy had never seen Bucky even be before. It was honestly enough to make her giddy inside.

"I just know our kids would be Red Sox fans." she whispered and she watched a wild grin appear on his face as he shook his head.

"No! Nah, nah, you've gone too far there," Bucky said, his face starting to glow, "the second they're able to walk, I'm taking them to a game, Yankees, alright? They're getting the playing cards, all that happy horseshit, okay?" Kennedy let out a laugh as Bucky held her closer.

"But what happens if they choose Red Sox, huh, what would you do?" she said, holding her chin high as Bucky smirked and shook his head.

"Wouldn't you like to know." he said softly back and Kennedy nodded with a grin, "Either way, you'd be the best mom those kiddos would ever have, I know that." Just hearing words like that, some deep and genuine and truthful from someone like Bucky made her heart race and her emotion take hold.

"I don't usually go soft on Red Sox fans anyway, but you might've gotten me, Kenny." Bucky whispered softly, catching her gaze as she stared at him. She brushed her thumb across his cheek again and leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips.

With how close they were, she couldn't help but feel him deepen the kiss there, this cracked-open rush of feelings enough for her to feel starved for him as his tongue swiped her bottom lip and a sigh left her lips.

She pulled herself as close as possible to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, her hands exploring his hair as she tilted her head to get more of him to her.

Breaking apart, slightly gasping for breaths of air, his lips danced across her jawline, dotting along her neck before he was there, sucking gently on a spot near her collarbone. It made her giddy, sitting here, despite the situation, with a man, tall, brooding, and a little goofy, kissing her neck and her of all people, like it was life itself.

It made her a little crazy inside - that he wanted her? He wanted a future, a life, kids…with her? Maybe it made her a little crazy, but it was true. Kennedy let out a giggle leave her lips and Bucky pulled back, eyes soft as he looked to her and grinned lazily.

"What are you laughing about?" he asked her, his voice making her insides twist again.

"Us." she whispered back, "You and me." Bucky watched her with a smirk.

"What about us?"

"Our futures." she said quietly, "God, imagine what our lives could be like."

"You see why I'm pushing the get-the-fuck out narrative now, right?" he said and Kennedy cackled at his words and nodded. Bucky watched her fondly and grinned.

"Well, since the door has been shoved wide open, no longer just a foot in the door, you gotta hit me with those baby names, Kenny, let me have 'em." he said, winking at her and grinning effortlessly, like some cool guy in a movie, "I gotta know what little Egans we'll have."

"You're leaving the naming to me?" she asked him with a laugh and Bucky grinned.

"Hell yeah I am," he said with a wider smile, "seriously, what are they." Kennedy softened and then smiled.

"I always thought Florence was a pretty name. For a girl - Flo for short. Margaret - Maggie for short. Charlotte - Charlie for short." Kennedy said and Bucky grinned, "For boys, well…..Gregory for sure. I've always loved Clark or James, Jimmy for short. Robert….Bobby for short."

"You sure are a nicknames type of girl aren't you?" Bucky said and Kennedy grinned.

"What can I say?" she said, "I thought your name was actually Bucky before I found out that was only a nickname and your name was actually Major John Egan. I was convinced, I'll tell ya." Bucky chuckled at that and smiled at her, reaching up to run some strands of hair back away from her face. He watched her in that sickeningly sweet way that made every part of her body melt in a way she couldn't describe.

"What'd they do to you?" Bucky whispered, reaching up to brush his calloused thumb near the tender part of her bruise, his touch gentle on her skin and her body inviting his touch; she felt in every lifetime, she'd invite his touch like a warm spark, a match with a flame waiting to blow.

Kennedy's smile fell as she watched him - the memories raw, it all seemed fresh in her mind and usually nightmares chased reality away. Instead this time, it was both a mix of reality and nightmares that were her everyday waking truth.

"I knew those Kraut doctors would have something for Bessie's cough." Kennedy whispered, pretty mater-of-factly to him softly - she liked this, whispering with him like things were a secret and that for once it was just the two of them - and she liked hearing his voice whispered back, so low and quiet and soft on her ears. She loved his voice. Bucky watched her, thumb brushing on her bruised cheek gently as he did so. She wanted him to look at her like that forever, however long forever could be if it were him.

"I would've done it for you," Bucky said quietly with a nod, "scrounged it for you-"

"No." Kennedy whispered softly, her eyes flashing to his, "You've already done enough for me, Bucky-"

"You got hurt, Kennedy." Bucky said, his voice thick with emotion, choked somewhere in his throat, "They hurt you." Bucky's eyes flashed with pain and Kennedy shut her mouth slowly.

"I know that." Kennedy whispered, "I've gotten hurt before. All the time. Even when I was a kid. And for a friend, for someone like Bessie, I'd do it again." Bucky watched her still.

"They hurt you." Bucky repeated, this time his voice firmer, but shaky, like he was standing out on a balance beam, waiting for the wind to take him and tip him towards the abyss.

Silence fell between them and suddenly Kennedy felt more emotional than she had in days. He cares, her mind seemed to scream, he's saying this because he cares! But her mind couldn't seem to make sense of it, she couldn't seem to get that picture in her mind. She was still in that flightless mode, that build-up-your-walls-and-you-are-fine mode.

"I know." Kennedy whispered her voice shaky, "But I'm okay." Bucky's eyes moved back and forth frantically between hers for a second before focusing on the bruise on her cheek again.

Being this close to him, staring into his gaze, his eyes, knowing that if felt like he could see the deepest parts of her, scared her. In so many ways. In ways she didn't want to have to think about.

Sitting in this silence with him wasn't something she was entirely used to - and she couldn't get her mind to work, to get words formed on her lips. Instead, all she could do was stare right back at him. Convince him with a look that she was okay.

"I don't want you to have to worry about me." Kennedy said quietly, looking up slowly at Bucky with a shy look, "You shouldn't have to worry." Bucky's face moved with a near-grimace, a pained expression flourishing on his features in a way that made Kennedy want to eat her words.

"But I will." Bucky said, his voice louder this time, "Kennedy, look, I…." Bucky's eyes trailed towards the window again, before pulling back to her, "You know, me worrying about you. It….it isn't up for discussion. In my eyes. I know you're used to looking out for yourself, but I need you to understanding that you don't have to live like that anymore." Kennedy's eyes watered.

"I'm here," Bucky said, cupped her cheek firmer this time, looking right into her eyes, desperation flooding his own, "for as long as I'm around, I'm going to come between you and anything that wants to hurt you. Okay?"

"Bucky…." she whispered, but he shook his head and adjusted his grip on her before leaning closer to her.

"They hurt you, Kennedy," Bucky whispered, "and the thought of them laying a single fucking hand on you makes me wanna lose my mind. Touching you. Because you were doing something for a crew member-"

"I don't want you hurt because of me." Kennedy told him quietly, watching as his eyes flicked to hers, pausing mid-sentence.

"Kennedy, I'd taking a fucking bullet for you," Bucky said, watching her with a steady gaze, "I'd do anything for you." Bucky grew quiet. Kennedy watched him back with big eyes.

"Fuck, Kennedy, I love you, I'm in love with you," Bucky whispered, looking up into her eyes, with the purest form of grief and pain and love swirling in his vision, "you worry about the people you love. I'm always gonna worry. Even if you're right beside me."

Kennedy's heart slammed against her chest as she sat wrapped in his arms, breathing the same air he breathed, watching those eyes, memorizing each freckle on his face, every time the muscles moved in his face to make him smile or frown.

Love was a word that had physically hurt her to even say in the past - to her mom, her dad, her brother, to those few guys she had dated and sworn promises and lives with.

Love had never been a word she used well or even understood well.

With Bucky though, she felt she understood love in every which way. In ways that were still to be explored. And no one had ever looked at her with a love like he had - even when she had come to the Stalag, dried blood up half her face, dirt and mud caking her form, starving for life and food and touch, barely being able to acknowledge anything but a bed for a few days, craving everything that was both human and not.

Scorning the world and the place they were in, and every single person.

And Bucky had been by her side and fed her soup and told her stories and held her in the dark as the nightmares and reality seemed to clash in her mind, wrapping her in calming words and blankets made of nothing but thin wool and telling her everything that came to his mind.

It had been Bucky. It'd always be Bucky.

"I'm so in love with you Bucky, you don't even know," Kennedy managed out in a sped up version of what her mind had managed to come up with, "I love you so much. And I don't want you hurt." A tear squeaked out down her face as he watched her.

Slowly, their foreheads met in the small center of space between them, inches between them as Bucky pulled her as close as he physically could to him, the clothes on their very bodies almost too much between them even now.

Slowly and almost achingly, Bucky pressed his lips to hers and she let herself go in that moment. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, hands mused into his hair, his own hands pushed up underneath her shirt and warming her cold skin, dancing near her bra strap and holding her in such a delicate manner, she was sure she could cry about it 10 years in the future.

Bucky's lips were soft, but hungry and by the time his tongue had slipped inside, she couldn't think about anything else. His soft sighs into her mouth, her own mind going a thousand miles a minute with him there so close to her, Kennedy was sure she had entered a world she never wanted to leave.

They came apart gasping for breaths of air before his lips were trailing her jawline, before settling on her neck, and she giggled, curling into his own neck - his jacket nearly smelled like home.

Like Thorpe Abbotts - that hug they'd shared that long night when bombs were going off overhead and Bucky couldn't seem to contain his words or his alcohol.

And God, she had stared at him and sworn she would never think of him again, but here she was, the two of them holding each other in a way she'd never been held before and was thinking of every outcome of their lives past this very point in time.

Bucky's teeth grazed a bit at that soft spot on her neck, before he softly pulled back and kissed her skin gently, peppering that same spot with soft kisses that made her grin into him.

Then, she couldn't help it - giddy with the feel of him there with her and the way he had kissed her, so desperately and hungry, she let out a laugh into his neck and he seemed to feel much of the same of whatever energy she was feeling, because he laughed, too. A low rumble that she felt against her cheek, from his throat, which made her hold onto him so tightly that she never wanted to let go.

"Bucky?" Kennedy whispered against his neck, listening to his heart pulsate - she loved the feel of him right here beneath here - every inch.

"Kenny?" Kennedy pressed a soft kiss to his neck and watched goosebumps appear and a shiver run over his entire body.

"I've never loved someone more than you." she whispered quietly. Bucky tilted his head back and watched her and seeing his eyes so big and soft and there, right in front of her, made her suddenly feel like everything was worth it.

"I love you," he whispered, pressing a peck to her lips before pulling back and smiling at her, "the thinking spot has never let a person down now, has it?"

And then, she was laughing again, clasping a hand over her mouth as she launched her head back.

Laughing with Bucky, God, she'd fight a war herself just to live in this moment with him every night there was in her life.

[death-limes]

ok im just curious cuz idk how these things work….. i know h*zbin was bought by A24 and they own the rights, but what about amazon? do they own it in any regard?

mostly i just think it would be hilarious to make a h*zbin fanwork and at the end be like “no copyright infringement intended, h*zbin h*tel and all its characters belong to jeff bezos” 🤣

[todayisafridaynight]

reasons number A Million why not every rgg character needs to be +6ft he looks so fuckin stretched out. actually got put in the willy wonka taffy puller

[lizard-tail]

Gojo Satoru’s attempt to change the Jujutsu society was sadly always doomed to fail

Now, first lets get some things out of the way:

Gojo, after Nanami, is one of the best supporting adults for the students. He helps them and protects them during missions, is in general a good mentor that gives them helpful advice, and wants them to fare better than himself and his contemporaries.

I do not criticise Gojo’s attempts to change the Jujutsu society. It needs an absolute overhaul and he does it to make the lives of children better.

His strategy of change through teaching is very commendable and absolutely  needed overall, just so the children can have a functioning adult support system.

But all of that does not change the fact that it was overall always doomed to fail, as it was barely holding the unforgiving nature of the Jujutsu society in check.

Jujutsu Society

The Jujutsu society itself seems to see themselves above non-sorcerers and their laws. I mean they are all normal residents of normal, democratic, modern Japan, right? But they absolutely do not care about Japan’s laws in the slightest. They can and do execute whoever they want, are beyond the judicial system and have child soldiers. And that’s just the absolute major laws of non-sorcerers they ignore. At the same time, it seems they see it as absolutely normal to just exist in Jujutsu society, and recruit every child with a Curse Technique to their fight, as if they all inherently must do it.

Gojo and his place in the system

Gojo, maybe more than anyone else, was the ultimate product of the Jujutsu society. He was at the same time treated like 1) an idolized sign of strength with powers of a demi-god as “The Strongest”, while also 2) the greatest sacrificial lamb raised up for the slaughter as “The Strongest”. It’s a paradoxical position, but a position utterly entrenched in the system. And not only in the system but in Jujutsu existence overall, because his birth changed the balance.

No other character is so integral interwoven into Jujutsu itself and its resulting system as he is. They way the society is now (curse users hiding, more stronger curses…) is because of Gojo, and Gojo is a product of the society (held up as the strongest, him stemming the whole society on his back…). He was raised in it, lived in it, it’s the only society he experienced. So many negative aspects of the Jujutsu society are so normalized for him, he doesn’t even pay it any mind. Because IMO for Gojo those are not aspects of a society that can be changed, but are facts of life.

Normalized endorsement?

Because lets be real: Gojo wants to change the life of the students for the better. That they are not so isolated as he was. That they don’t lose their innocence so soon. All very great things. But he does NOT question the existence of child soldiers!  

Child soldiers and being a child soldier is so normalized for Gojo, that he does not acknowledge/mention the fact that joining a Jujutsu High School and becoming official Jujutsu sorcerers is, by default the loss of their innocence, because they become child soldiers.

(Yes, I know it’s a shounen manga and of course teenagers are the protagonists/heroes, but that’s just a lame and too easy excuse. Especially because JJK plays, deconstructs and subverts a lot of normal shounen tropes at the moment by giving a horrifying insight what it means to be a child soldier. Don’t bring up the horror of child soldiers and then don’t commit)

Gojo himself, despite his good intentions and good actions, often still falls back onto the methods and the system of the Jujutsu society by not really monitoring their missions despite info that it’s not going as planned (Megumi and Sukuna’s finger), sending his students into danger to unlock Yuta’s potential, and most of all, still training children to be child soldiers. Being a child soldier is so ingrained in himself and his surroundings that despite his overall positive actions to better their lives as child soldiers, he does not mention making meaningful changes to lessen their existence as child soldiers.

Lessening the Burden

Because there are changes that the Jujutsu society overall could arrange that would lessen their burden as child soldiers:

Not letting them be unsupervised on missions without an experienced adult sorcerer

Age restriction for the different sorcerer classes despite their innate power and abilities

Only allowing a certain number of missions per month/week

Of course, now there will be people saying that they have to little sorcerers for that, and they need them otherwise more people will die. And yes. There would be most likely more people that die by curses. But at the same time it’s possible that better adjusted sorcerers who were better protected and supported as children have a better rate of survival leading to more sorcerers and saved lives (that would need an impossible case study).

And also: people die. That sounds harsh, but it is true. I mean we all know the articles and studies about world hunger in some countries, and food waste in industrial countries. Horrible working conditions for fast fashion or getting resources. How man-made climate change effects will lead to massive changes and most likely a lot of death and so on. Just massive, horrible failures of systems and societies that take deaths and pain into account. And in contrast to the real-world issues, the Jujutsu sorcerers are not responsible for curses and the subsequent deaths of people. Especially not the children that have a right to be protected.

Now again, that’s not the fault of Gojo at all. But it noticeable that he does not question the existence of child soldiers and does not attempt to make systematic changes. Instead, he focuses on individuals to leave a lasting impression on them.

The issue of class and hierarchy

The power of the Jujutsu society lies in the higher ups made up from very old, established clans and family lines. Gojo’s rank as clan head means he has also a lot of political power. He is basically empowered two times over. So he can throw a lot of power and influence around and force a lot of things his way (eg. Protecting Yuta and Yuuji from execution, taking Megumi from the Zennin…). But as with his sorcerer powers, he is mostly isolated from the others around him regarding his political powers. Noone else close to him has as much political influence as he does, in many ways it’s the opposite as his closest allies and students are despised by the higher ups.

Yuta and Yuuji were to be executed, Inumaki is from a clan that’s despised and hunted down, Hakari was suspended, Maki is hated by her clan, Panda is an abomination, Nobara is from the country. Megumi had greatest chance of getting political power, but was basically booted out as soon as possible by the established clan. The adults also wield barely any influence. Nanami and Shoko are high ranking sorcerers but have nothing to do with politics and the system and rather keep out of the way. Yaga has the political power but was regarded as a dangerous and killed off as soon as possible. Tokyo Jujutsu High is basically a ragtag group of unwanted sorcerers. As soon as Gojo was out of the way the Jujutsu society at large did their best to boot everyone around him into insignificant positions and the edges of the Jujutsu society, having no influence on the wider scale of it.

It's a contrast to Kyoto High, especially in the beginning (before Gojo was sealed and everything got complete chaotic). Gakuganji is a very trusted and influential sorcerer, all the students at the Goodwill Event were trusted to execute their kill orders, the clan members are maybe not valued by the clans (and treated like shit) but they were accepted by them as long as they did not step a foot out of line. They are overall political and social better positioned in the Jujutsu society.

And that matters a lot. Because long-lasting reformation of a societal system through teaching can only really happen if you have continued access to the society and can inform and influence a major group of that system. As it was everything rested on Gojo and Gojo alone. We don’t know the exact numbers, but overall the Jujutsu society while seemingly small is a lot larger than the small group of students we follow. Larger in number than the individual students Gojo teaches and influences. Even if all of his students would hold on to his teachings and teach others as well in the future, it would need decades to permeate the Jujutsu society and meaningful change it in ways that would not be easily changed back. And because a lot of it hinges on the continued presence and power of Gojo, it was sadly always a very shaky house of cards. Or like the meme showed, a flex tape trying to hold back water.

Conclusion: Gojo Satoru did make meaningful and needed changes especially for the life of individuals and showed aspects of the Jujutsu society that need to be overhauled. But it was never enough for long-lasting, permanent change as it did nothing to the inherent brokenness of the Jujutsu society and its use of child soldiers and its hierarchy of classism. Without breaking those things all of his efforts were generally doomed to fail. (I guess everything post-Shibuya achieved something at least)